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Jurors told police planted gun in Mpls shooting

A Minneapolis police officer made a
rookie mistake when he gunned down Fong Lee, a lawyer for Lee's
family told jurors Tuesday, then the officer lied about the youth
having a gun because he knew killing an unarmed teenager would ruin
his career.

Michael Padden, representing Lee's family in their wrongful
death lawsuit against the officer and the city of Minneapolis, said
in his opening statement that Officer Jason Andersen showed
"unbelievable, incomprehensible incompetence" when he shot Lee
eight times on July 22, 2006, outside an elementary school.

Fong Lee running from policeStill from security video

But Gregory Sautter, a Minneapolis assistant city attorney, told
the jury that Andersen was justified in shooting Lee.

He said
they'd hear that both Andersen and a state trooper with him saw Lee
holding a gun -- and that Lee disregarded numerous orders to drop
it.

"This case is an urban American tragedy ... the evidence will
show that Andersen's actions were entirely legal, justified and
proper," Sautter said.

Padden told the jury they'd hear testimony that not a speck of
blood, no fingerprints or any other trace evidence was found on the
gun after it was recovered about three feet from Lee's body. Yet he
said the scene was so bloody that the Fire Department was called to
hose it down and wash Lee's blood away.

Padden said several eyewitnesses would tell the jury they never
saw Lee with a gun.

"Any gun that was there would have had to be placed there by
law enforcement," Padden said. "Nobody else had access to the
area."

A key issue in the trial in U.S. District Court is the history
of that Baikal pistol. It had been reported stolen from a
Minneapolis resident, Dang Her, during a burglary in 2004.

Her testified Tuesday that police later told him his gun had
been recovered from a snowbank and linked to an armed robbery, and
that he would get the gun back after that case was over.

Speaking through an interpreter, Her testified that he didn't
hear from police again until a few days after Lee was killed, when
two officers came asking about the gun that had been found at the
scene. Her said he told them he understood that police had been
holding his gun since 2004.

"They didn't really say anything but they looked at each other
and their faces turned red," Her said. "That was their
expression."

In his opening statement, Sautter said the evidence would show
that Her's Russian-made gun was never in police possession before
Lee was killed -- that the gun recovered from the snowbank in 2004
was actually a rusty Czech-made FNH 7.65-caliber semiautomatic
pistol.

He suggested it was only through a police mistake back in
2004 that an officer notified Her his gun had been recovered.

Much of the case will turn on which side's witnesses the jury
believes, and the early testimony highlighted that many facts
remain in dispute.

The first two witnesses testified that the incident began when
Andersen, still in his squad car, started following a group of
teenagers on bicycles, including Lee.

The witnesses testified they
saw the squad car bump Lee's bike and knock him to the ground. They
testified they saw Lee hoist up his loose, baggy pants before
taking off on foot around the school.

But the jury saw a security video from the school that appeared
to show the squad car never hit Lee, and that instead he threw down
his bike before he took off running.

Video shot by another security camera at the school, which
jurors will see later, shows Lee running past with Anderson in
pursuit. The plaintiffs maintain it shows that Lee was not holding
a gun. But it also doesn't show the actual shooting.

Sautter told the jury that in the final confrontation, Lee
continued to threaten Andersen with the gun before the officer
fired the final, fatal shot.

The trial is expected to last at least a week or two. Outside
the courtroom, Padden said he won't put a figure on the actual and
punitive damages Lee's family is seeking until his closing
arguments.